“Dessay they are, but they’re floated away. The whole ship’s a reg’lar cellar.”
Billy then got on about the length of time they stopped, about the wonderful nature of the crater bay, and the depth of the water.
“Why, when you was rowing acrost it you could feel as it must go right through to the other side, it was so deep. No water couldn’t be so black as that was without being hundreds o’ knots deep.”
“I say, Billy, ain’t you getting hundreds o’ knots into your yarn?” said Small.
“Not I, bosun. It’s all fact; you ask my mate here if it aren’t. I suppose you don’t want to know about that there shark?” he continued, as he picked a bone in a very ungentlemanly manner, taking his hands to it, and once leaving it stuck across his mouth like a horse’s bit, while he altered his position.
“Oh yes, we do! Let’s hear about the shark,” cried all present.
“Well,” said Billy, “there aren’t much to tell, only that as we was going along I says to the skipper, I says, ‘There’s a whacking great shark along yonder.’
“‘Ay, Billy,’ he says, ‘that’s a thumper, and no mistake.’
“There he was, going round and round us with his back fin above water, just like a steam launch, and before you knew where you was he puts his head out o’ water, gives a squint at us to see which was the best looking to swaller—”
“And he chose you, Billy, because you’ve got such short legs as wouldn’t kick about much when you was down.”